


Love Me Again

by haechansheaven



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, Learning To Communicate, Love, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24418132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haechansheaven/pseuds/haechansheaven
Summary: Ten years.Fall in love, convince yourself you fell out of love, and learn to love again.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 16
Kudos: 108





	Love Me Again

**Author's Note:**

> from [this thread](https://twitter.com/haechansheaven/status/1245342743557279745).  
> i edited this a little. kind of. it is almost one in the morning. please let me off the hook.
> 
>  **note** : mentions of therapy/counseling and anxiety. they are all rather brief and come towards the end.

They’re in New York _Fuckin’_ City and all Mark can think about is all the ways he’s fucked up. He had come to this conclusion, all on his own, months ago. _Months ago_. And, in typical Mark fashion, it has taken forever for the execution.

He must break up with Johnny.

He’s thinking about it in Times Square, he thinks about it in Central Park, he’s thinking of it sitting across from Johnny at a fancy dinner table in a restaurant he can’t remember the name of. It’s an all-consuming sort of conclusion because, you see, Johnny deserves better.

Johnny deserves better than Mark, a human full of insecurities that could cut down even the boldest of men. He really does. All Mark does, he has concluded, is weigh Johnny down. Pull him into the valleys that Mark occupies, wasting his potential. And Johnny has a lot of potential.

That’s why, standing in Incheon International Airport, jetlagged to hell, Mark decides to bite the bullet and do it. And in retrospect, it’s not a great time. Or place. Really, just the entire execution of the breakup is fucking atrocious.

Mark comes to this conclusion later.

To Johnny’s credit, it’s fucking April first, and he laughs. Johnny laughs until he looks at Mark and it hits him that Mark is breaking up with him in front of the luggage carousel at nine in the fucking morning. And then that laugh is different. It’s bitter and full of disbelief and, yeah. Mark gets it. There’s ten years between their first date and now, and this is how Mark decides to do it? A flimsy, “I’m breaking up with you,” in front of a sea full of strangers? People looking on with pity at a man getting his heart broken in public?

Ten years for this.

Johnny’s laugh is bitter, and it’s broken, and he can’t look at Mark. They still live together. They fucking cohabitate in a small apartment in Busan where Johnny takes photos and Mark teaches English and God—God, Mark really fucked up.

He really, really fucked up.

The taxi ride is quiet. The train ride is quiet. Walking into their apartment is quiet. Everything is so quiet, and it’s fucking bizarre because, around Johnny, Mark can’t think of a time when things were silent. Even during fights—when reconciling, everything—it was loud.

This Johnny is different, though Mark comes to the conclusion that he shouldn’t know this Johnny. He wishes he didn’t have to know this Johnny, because Mark is still absolutely head-over-heels in love with John Seo. There’s not a moment where he isn’t. That is why he’s letting him go in the first place.

Johnny, Mark believes, really does deserve better. He looks around their flimsy little apartment they only relocated to because Mark found a different job in a different city, and thinks that even if it really fucking hurts, he did the right thing. Johnny will no longer be squished into this small apartment and bleak existence.

“It’s fine,” Johnny had said while packing up his things for the move to Busan. “Where you go, I go. Right? As always.”

And that _as always_ sat with a bitter taste on Mark’s tongue. _As always_ still stabs him with a sort of bitterness because it is true. It has always been Johnny uprooting himself for Mark and never the other way around. Mark has been selfish and cruel and torn Johnny away from everything he knew to chase a dream that isn’t tangible.

Johnny disappears for a moment before reappearing, brow furrowing as he paces back and forth. Mark hasn’t even dragged his suitcase to the bedroom yet. It rolls back and forth between his hands as he refuses to look at Johnny. How could he look at Johnny?

“You’re joking, right?” Johnny asks, finally settling against their kitchen counter. Their apartment is small, and he stares at Mark from across the table where they eat. And work. And sometimes sleep. “Like, hah hah, April Fool’s—”

“I’m not joking, Johnny. I’m breaking up—”

“Why?” interjects Johnny, frown deepening.

“Because you deserve better.”

“Oh, this cliché, huh?” Johnny bites out. “How about the cliché where I remind you that relationships are a two-way street and we’re supposed to talk about all of this? Remember that, too?”

“Breakups aren’t usually a mutual thing,” argues Mark. It’s weak though. Everything about Mark is weak. “They aren’t supposed to be, even if the heartbreak is.”

“Right.” Pushing away from the counter, Johnny shakes his head. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t—”

“Take me seriously, please?” Standing, Mark wrings his hands together. “I spent months—you, I mean of course you know how I am—thinking about how you really do deserve better, Johnny. I dragged you to Busan, away from Seoul. I dragged you to Seoul from Chicago. I—”

“It wasn’t dragging me anywhere because I wanted to follow you,” Johnny says. His eyes are wide as he throws his hands in the air. “You didn’t force my hand with anything, Mark. You never have! Stop making up these fucked-up scenarios in your head. I want to be here, with you.”

“You’re only thinking that way because this,” Mark gestures between them, still avoiding Johnny’s gaze, “is all you know. If you knew the world differently, you’d agree with me. Which is why I’m putting my foot down and ending this.”

Johnny laughs, loud and bitter and angry, before laying his hands on the kitchen table. “ _This_? You’re boiling ten years of a relationship down to one fucking tiny word? _This_? Is that how you feel about us, Mark? _Really_?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why—”

“It’s because I feel like _this_ , that I know I don’t deserve it. So, I’m breaking up with you. So you’ll find someone who gives equally, and I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that I’m not pulling you away from things anymore.”

Simple.

It is _so fucking simple_ , and Mark never thought that it wouldn’t hurt both of them. Broken hearts on both sides are just a part of break ups. This is Mark’s first one, in a way, but he likes to think he knows enough to realize that they’re both supposed to be hurting.

Johnny is quiet. He is quiet as he walks away, quiet as he closes the bedroom door. Even his crying is quiet. Quieter than Mark, who digs his fingers into his thighs and prays that he made the right—the best—decision for them. Mark, that night, sleeps on the couch.

Not because he’s drunk, though waking up after a long cry feels somewhat close to waking up hungover. There’s a blanket thrown over his shoulders, though the bedroom door is still closed. If he stills himself, he can hear Johnny’s voice, quiet, on the phone. So far away.

It is fine. This is what he wanted, anyways. He wanted distance. Separation. Mark decided to forge a crack into the relationship between him and the man he’s irreversibly in love with. It’s fine. It’s what he wanted.

He can’t fall back asleep.

Jaemin’s fingers tangle in Mark’s hair and then pull as the two wrestle on the couch. Chenle screams bloody murder as Jeno eats and watches. This is normal, Mark reminds himself. There’s always some sort of chaos that comes with his friends’ presence. This is how it usually is. Except, Mark isn’t usually their target.

He thinks he might go bald.

There’s a mad dash to save the dish ware that sits precariously on the coffee table. It’s not enough though, and Mark listens to a plate crash to the ground and shatter. Shoving Jaemin off him, Mark swears.

“ _What the fuck_.”

“Yeah, what the fuck,” mutters Donghyuck from the doorway. It takes everything—absolutely fucking everything—in Mark to avoid Johnny’s gaze as they straighten themselves out. “I drive all you assholes out here to Busan and this is what you do?” asks Donghyuck. “Break their shit? Really?”

“It’s Jaemin’s fault, obviously,” Chenle mutters.

Navigating a life where you cohabitate with your ex is fucking weird. Mark isn’t sure he can get used to it. He’s permanently glued to the couch at this point, leaving Johnny to tiptoe through the apartment. Jaemin tells him it’s his fault, and Chenle says that they should talk.

Mark doesn’t know how to talk about it though. They did talk—though he doesn’t think any communication really happened—and it got them nowhere. Mark is content to finish it like this: Leaving the house before Johnny wakes up and coming back before Johnny gets home.

He’s told their friends, but the call to his parents still remains incomplete. It is a task he isn’t able to think about for more than a minute because, to no one’s surprise, Mark’s parents love Johnny. Adore Johnny. Their eyes had lit up when they all first met; they had called him their second son when Mark first brought him home.

They thought he was the one for Mark. And, sure, Mark did too. Mark was so sure that he was going to get married to Johnny. They would settle down, buy a house, own a few pets, overrun their house with plants, and adopt a kid. Or ten, if Johnny had any say.

Johnny was Mark’s future.

That future is a little shattered now, crumbling into pieces from the center outwards. Eventually it’ll become so unstable that the whole thing will collapse. Mark wonders if he still thinks that such a future can exist because he still lives with Johnny.

Because Johnny is still stumbling over, _Good night, I love you_ ’s still, trying to recover as he closes the door behind him, praying that Mark is already asleep. He never is, though. They both know Mark’s shitty sleep habits.

Because Johnny still leaves him breakfast, though the notes he used to leave are now crumpled up and tossed in the trash. They’re trying hard to break habits that they spent ten years building. It only takes twenty-seven days to make a habit. It takes forever to break one.

Or, that’s what psychologists say, anyways. Mark has broken his habits steadily, if not for anything other than his ridiculous stubbornness. Jaemin is five seconds away from ending him, Chenle doesn’t want to protect him from Jaemin anymore, and Jeno has always been passive.

“It’s your choice,” Jeno had said, “and I can’t change your mind. You’ll do what you want, whether I like it or not. You’re annoying like that.”

Mark calls it independence and self-assurance, but Jeno isn’t wrong. Once Mark has made his decision, he can’t justify going back on it.

Donghyuck is tougher to crack, since this is a weird in-between for the both of them. Their friendship had just been repaired, and Mark thinks that he’s probably gone and fucked it up again. He’s sure of it, actually, per Donghyuck’s, “Johnny made you into a functioning human.”

Which, Mark surmises, is where the whole entire issue started. Johnny made him. He made Johnny. They’re sort of intertwined and no longer individuals. Mark never wanted to take anything from Johnny, and surely not his individuality. That’s why he loves—loved—Johnny. One of the reasons, anyways, because Mark can count a thousand and one reasons that he fell in love with Johnny and a thousand and one more things he learned over the next ten years. Maybe a million and one. Mark isn’t sure. He just knows that he loves Johnny.

Loved. Loves.

In the back of his mind, Jaemin is screaming at him—“If you’re together for that long, of course you’re gonna rely on one another for things! Jesus Christ, get your head out of your ass, Mark Lee!”—but Mark is ignoring him in favor of opening his laptop.

A new apartment.

That seems like a solution. Probably. Or just another hole for Mark to dig himself in. He’s not really sure he cares at this point. The only thing on his mind at the moment is getting away—reminding himself that he can’t love Johnny anymore. That he needs to let Johnny go. Part of him will miss this tiny apartment that was definitely too small for the both of them.

In his browser, he opens Airbnb. It can buffer the time between then and now. A place to give them space to exist in different ways. To figure things out again.

This is the right thing, Mark tells himself. This is the best thing.

Even if everyone is telling him it’s not.

Mark moves out on a Monday. It’s just another knife in the back of their least favorite day of the week. He leaves behind a lot, though, in his haste to move. Clothes and dishware and knick-knacks bought throughout the years. Mark is hesitant to take the extra time needed to gather them all.

He gets a call from Donghyuck on Tuesday asking for permission—to tell Johnny where he’s living now, pull Mark’s other things together and b—He doesn’t get a chance to finish the second question because Johnny starts speaking before he can. There’s a, “No! No, no, don’t...”

And nothing else. Mark’s okay with that. They’re trinkets with good memories that he doesn’t deserve. It only makes sense that they would stay there.

Jaemin and Chenle visit him on a Thursday to make sure Mark is okay, and he thinks he might be—the Airbnb is fine. He’s fine. Everything is fine.

Probably.

Everything is so high up in the air that Mark can’t actually tell anymore if he’s rising or falling. Everything is in slow motion, and Mark is sure that, eventually, he’ll hit the ground. Or a plane. He doesn’t know, doesn’t care. It’s all an inevitability. At some point he’ll hit something and that will be it. The impact is an inevitability, just like it was inevitable that Johnny was going to fall out of love with him. Mark was simply streamlining the process for him. He took necessary shortcuts to reach the fated end.

Donghyuck tells him that he’s an idiot. Mark thinks that he might be. But that’s fine, too.

“No, Mark Lee, you’re a _big fucking idiot_ ,” Donghyuck says, waving his arms around. Someone at the PC behind them tells Donghyuck to leave if he’s going to shout, and he tells them to fuck off before turning back to Mark. “Like, a colossal fucking moron. I cannot believe you.”

“You’ve told me this more times than I can count.” Mark leans back as the match ends. He’s last, as always. “You and everyone’s fucking mother. How many times are you guys gonna make me explain myself? I did the best thing for Johnny and I. Why do I need to explain it again?”

“Because it wasn’t the best thing for you two, you fucking dipshit!” Jabbing Mark in the shoulder, he shakes his head. “For someone who graduated top of their class and was first in everything, you’re pretty fucking brainless, Mark.”

Swiveling in the chair, Mark presses his lips together as he stares Donghyuck down. He knows he doesn’t look as threatening as he wants to. It’s nearly impossible for him to intimidate Donghyuck, anyways. He’s tried.

“Really?” he asks. “Is that so?”

“I know you better than anyone else, Mark. Maybe even yourself. I know you better than Johnny knows you because I know,” Donghyuck waves his hands around Mark’s head, “how you got to be like this. And it’s unfair and fucked up and you need to get over that misplaced trauma.”

“It’s not trauma—”

“I really thought you were over the whole, ‘I don’t deserve love,’ thing when you met Johnny,” Donghyuck steamrolls ahead, “because he’s fucking in love with you Mark. He’s looked at you the same way since the moment he saw you. Do you understand?”

Scoffing, Mark shakes his head. “Understand what? That it’s temporary?”

“He is still—present tense, _fucker_ —in love with you, Mark!” shouts Donghyuck, standing up. “You broke his fucking heart and he _still_ thinks that this is temporary. He hasn’t told his parents, dumbass.”

Mark sits there in silence as the manager asks them to leave. And they do, Mark logging out of the game in silence. He thinks that maybe just moving out isn’t enough. That maybe he should start looking for new jobs, too. Far away. _Very_ far away.

“You are my best friend,” Donghyuck says, voice a little softer. “You’ve been my best friend for nearly my entire life, Mark. Through you attending school in Canada, to you moving back... I watched you learn to ride a fucking bike. I’m angry because you were happy. I’m angry because you could still be happy. And you just threw it away because a person convinced you that nothing you ever wanted would work in your favor.”

“It’s not just that,” Mark argues, shaking his head. “It’s that I’m not good enough for him. I’m not. That’s fine.”

Donghyuck looks nearly ready to pull Mark’s hair out and then his own. Mark knows he might. “You’re just— _ugh_. You know? Do you know what I mean? I love you, Mark. I really do. But if you’re going to be this fucking stubborn, I’d rather we not talk about this.”

“That’s also fine,” Mark says. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he asks, “So. Are you up for helping me find a new job?”

“I’m not. But I’m going to do it because you’re my best friend, and I don’t know how to fight,” he gestures between the two of them with a frown, “whatever this is.” Reaching out, Donghyuck unlocks his phone. “ESL?”

And seeing Donghyuck in Busan, not in their—Johnny’s, now—secondhand loveseat is weird. Beyond weird. That’s the Donghyuck-in-Busan scene that Mark is used to. His brain short-circuits for a minute before he opens his laptop. Everything is different now, though. Mark needs to get used to it.

Donghyuck isn’t on his side.

Even if there aren’t sides.

Besides, Mark hasn’t told his parents, either. It’s been a month, and he hasn’t told them anything. Sends them old, private photos of him and Johnny that look recent enough in an attempt to stifle their questions about how they’re doing, where Johnny is when they call.

Daegu sounds nice, Mark thinks to himself, looking over to Donghyuck who dozes off on the couch. His head lolls to the side every so often and eventually he gives in. Mark, quiet, rests a blanket over him before heading to bed himself.

He can think of it another day.

Johnny doesn’t want to remove anything. Everything remains where Mark left it. His flannel on the bedroom floor, mug on the counter and still empty from before they left for New York City, snow globe he bought in Seoul perched precariously on the edge of his old desk. They are reminders of Mark that Johnny takes comfort in. Particularly since it lets him feel like Mark isn’t gone forever. These things have been in these states for a while now—they would stay like this for just as long if Johnny didn’t prod Mark to tidy up his things.

And there would be the bare minimum of pushback where Mark pleads for a kiss to inspire him to neaten up the apartment, and Johnny would comply, because there are a select few things he is able to say no to Mark about. Including Mark wanting a puppy.

When Donghyuck calls to ask Mark, Johnny knows that it was too much, taking Donghyuck’s phone and ending the call.

“Don’t take them,” Johnny whispers quietly, handing Donghyuck’s phone back.

“Why? Don’t you want to get rid of all of Mark’s shit?” Gesturing around the apartment, he shakes his head. “Like, doesn’t it fucking suck to have his things here? Remind you of the breakup? That he moved out?”

“No,” he shakes his head frantically, looking around their apartment. “No, no. Don’t. I don’t. He’ll come back. I think. I hope. I love him and I think he knows that. Maybe he just needs time. That’s all.”

Donghyuck’s glance is pitiful as he nods. “Okay,” he says. “I won’t.”

And maybe—maybe Johnny deserves that look. Maybe he deserves it for spending a month making double the coffee. Maybe he deserves it for still putting together lunches for Mark to take to work. Maybe he deserves it for ordering double the amount of food for dinner.

Maybe.

It’s hard for Johnny to say because, for part of it, Mark was still so close. Johnny could still whisper, “Good night, I love you,” from the hallway while Mark slept; he could still pull the blanket over Mark when he kicked it off as he slept.

And then he wasn’t.

But living together for so long has ingrained these habits in Johnny, and—and, he’s sure that Mark will come back. He’s positive that he’s not being stubborn or stupid or reckless. Johnny knows Mark. He knows that Mark knows. They’re in love, Johnny ascertains. Present tense. So he doesn’t try to break the habits—he drinks double the amount of coffee, eats double the amount for lunch and dinner. He still goes on the evening walks he and Mark would take every Sunday night to settle themselves before the week began. He shouldn’t break them.

Mark will come back.

That’s why his parents don’t know yet.

“It’s been hard,” Johnny tells them, “so he’s tired. He went to bed early.” And they smile, and they nod, and they tell him how excited they are to see him for the holidays. And—right. The holidays.

Johnny will speak to Mark before then, he thinks. He’ll remind him of the impending trip and maybe even ask him to come home. Johnny knows he might be a little selfish. He knows this, but he loves Mark enough that he thinks they will be okay.

It’s been ten years, after all.

Money always wins, Mark thinks bitterly. Always. Not that Chenle minds. Chenle is happy to call Busan his home for the next year, working remote and driving back into the city for meetings once in a blue moon. It’s like a vacation for him. And, in return, Mark receives moral support.

Kind of.

It’s a bit generous to call Chenle’s advice supportive—if Donghyuck is honest and cuts deep with ferocity, Chenle does it with a pleasant smile on his face. Mark argues that it’s worse. He’d much prefer the way that Donghyuck frowns and slaps him with the truth than a smile that barely softens the blow.

And the thing is that Mark could move very, very far away. There are options in other countries, but his parents are in Korea and he is hesitant to leave them the older he gets. It’s one thing to be a train ride away. It’s another to be a fourteen-hour plane ride. He’s okay staying in Busan.

For what it’s worth, Chenle is a good roommate. He is spread out, things everywhere, but Mark figures that it’s not the worst habit that Chenle could have. They could be a worse match in retrospect. Mark remembers the one time that he and Donghyuck tried to room together. It was the worst fucking experience of Mark’s entire life.

He met Johnny not long after, though. So, perhaps it wasn’t absolutely terrible.

“So,” Chenle says, waving his spoon around, “when are you two, like, gonna talk? You’re giving Donghyuck gray hairs, you know. Like, I think you might make his hairline recede, too. And that would be a shame because I think Hyuck looks better with hair. He’d be okay bald, but he’s better with hair.”

Mark furrows his brow in confusion before shaking his head. He has no intention to talk to Johnny, and Donghyuck doesn’t have to exist in the middle with as much stress as he does. It’s his choice, Mark figures. There aren’t sides, and everything will probably blow over. Eventually.

And, okay, Mark never was the best at making predictions. If anything, he tends to be wrong almost every single time. It’s a bad track record that Mark, for some reason, thinks can only get better. And then it gets worse. Much worse.

“The fact Mark is still allowed to make decisions is a crime,” Jaemin says. “An absolute fucking travesty.” He’s sprawled on the floor, staring at the ceiling as Mark sits there in silence. Which Chenle eventually gets fed up with. Mark knows this by the pistachios that are suddenly flung at the back of his head.

“Hey, Mr. Brainless,” Chenle calls from the couch. “I asked you a question and it wasn’t rhetorical!”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” mutters Mark. Because there isn’t. Everything is said and done. He has made his decision—Mark was laid down to rest, and now he will accept the repercussions.

“He’s hopeless, Chenle.” Jaemin rolls onto his stomach to push himself up. Blinking away dizziness inserts a lull to the conversation before he’s back to steamrolling over Mark’s confidence. “He really thinks that Johnny deserves better than him. There’s no use arguing with him.”

“He’s wrong,” gripes Chenle, “so, of _course_ I’m gonna argue with him. Mark’s being a dipshit.”

“I can’t believe you’re talking shit about me in my own home,” Mark mutters, arms crossed.

Chenle sits up and flings another pistachio at his head. “Temporary home. _Temp-or-ary_. You’re moving back in with Johnny once you stop being a motherfucking idiot!”

Mark doesn’t say anything. Instead, he presses his lips together and turns to walk into the kitchen. Because, here’s the thing. Mark would do anything, he thinks, to relive one day with Johnny. He would do anything to remember what it was like to be loved and not anxious. To be loved and not psycho-analyze every single fucking thing that happens.

And, to Donghyuck’s credit, Mark thought he was over it all, too. He really did. Everyone around him thought Johnny was the one. Mark thought so, too. Somewhere, though, his mind took a left turn. Strayed from the beaten path and reminded Mark that he does nothing but drag people down. That he’s inherently selfish and forgets about the people around him. In his haste to right a wrong, he’s done nothing but drag other people into this mess. It wasn’t his intention.

There are footsteps at the doorway and Mark speaks before he looks. For once. “Listen, Chenle, I—”

“I’m definitely not Chenle. I actually have taste, Mark. I never would’ve dyed my hair that disgusting green,” teases Jaemin, pressing his hip against the counter.

“That stint where you only dyed your bangs says otherwise,” Mark shoots back. Jaemin’s smile drops at the dig. “Exactly.”

“Fuck you. I came in here to be supportive.”

“I don’t need supportive. I just need people to drop it,” Mark says, waving his hands around. “Like, immediately. Right now. For forever.”

“Well,” Jaemin sighs, “I won’t do that. And I won’t pull out more of your hair. Promise.”

Reaching up, Mark tugs at his own locks, shaking his head. He kind of deserved it, he supposes. Lack of foresight. “It’s fine. Hair grows back. Right? Like, it’ll come back.”

“We’re bugging you because we know you,” Jaemin says, hand gentle on the back of Mark’s neck, “and we know the kind of path your mind has taken to lead you to this. And that it was the wrong one. But you can’t help it, right? And we can’t do anything about that. Not now, anyways. But Johnny loves you, Mark. He hasn’t stopped loving you, and you haven’t stopped loving him, so we’re just trying to get you back up on your feet so you can figure things out. And, in retrospect, we’re not doing it well. We’re doing it in our own ways. We just... care.”

“In your own ways,” mutters Mark, placing the mug in the sink.

He blinks and wonders why the world is becoming so blurry, Jaemin’s arms wrapping around him. For the first time since it’s all began, Mark lets himself cry in front of someone else. It’s cathartic. Sort of. It doesn’t clean up the mess in his heart or anything, though it relieves some of the pressure building up. He can breathe a little easier, think a little clearer. Come to conclusions.

“I miss him,” Mark whispers around a sob. “I really miss him so fucking much.”

Johnny realizes, belatedly, that Mark took one of his mugs. It’s an old thing—an artifact of his university days—and not really something he ever had that much fondness for. It was simply something that had traveled alongside him.

It was Mark’s favorite mug.

It _is_ Mark’s favorite mug, he thinks, reorganizing the cupboard one last time. He’s sure that Mark’s brewing too much coffee, or not enough, and not realizing that the mug he’s using was never his to begin with. Though Johnny relinquished the idea of ownership long ago.

With Mark, he thinks, there’s no _it’s his_ versus _it’s mine_ , save for clothes that Johnny couldn’t fit in and sweaters that would swallow Mark whole. There was always equal give and take between them. Johnny supposes that is why he doesn’t understand why this happened.

Why this is happening.

But he’s determined to give Mark the space he needs and craves to formulate the thoughts in his head. Even if it hurts. Because it hurts a fucking lot. Sometimes Johnny doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to hold Mark far away from himself. He wants him close by.

Mark’s things are still where they may be, and there is some mediocre sense of routine that still exists within them. This is evident from the way that they still frequent the same café they always did, until they don’t. And it spirals from there. Another attempt to find a new place, only to run into Mark the following week. Their tastes have merged into one, and it’s impossible to find anywhere else to go. In the end, there’s some sort of silent agreement for a staggering of times. Like visitation rights.

It’s weird.

But life, in general, without Mark, is weird. Johnny is still trying to figure it out. There’s ten years of built-up habits that Johnny is trying to maintain without his other person. Mark will come back, he reminds himself, so it’s up to Johnny to keep things the same, which is easier said than done. There was breaking and remodeling of habits when they met, though Johnny is grateful to have gotten rid of the ones that he did. He hopes that Mark feels the same, even though Mark reminded him time and time again that he did. That he is grateful for the changes Johnny made.

Johnny needs to stop referring to Mark’s emotions in the past tense. Mark’s feelings haven’t changed, he tells himself. He just needs space, and Johnny is more than willing to give it to him, though as the months become warmer, time is running out.

His parents have reminded him, for the tenth time this month, that they look forward to seeing them in December. For Christmas. There’s also the reminder to book their tickets now before prices become absolutely fucking exorbitant and they can’t fly out. Johnny hopes that Mark realizes he left his passport in the drawer they keep all their documents in. He’ll bring it with him.

Johnny wants to bring the ring with him, too. The one that he has had shoved into a pair of socks for five years now. He wonders if he should’ve proposed sooner. Johnny wonders if Mark wouldn’t be worrying and having doubts if he had just done what he set out to do all those years ago.

Though Johnny knew that Mark is the one—that Mark is his future—three years into the relationship. Mark is bright-eyed and full of life in a way that Johnny can’t get enough of. He’s delicate touches and a lot of love that he doesn’t realize he has. It was so easy for Johnny to fall in love.

It’s so easy for Johnny to be in love. Mark is many things—layers and layers of good things wrapped around a small, tight ball of not-as-good-but-still-loved things. Like Mark’s worries and over-thinking and fears. Johnny is working his way to the center of it all.

Mark is his center. Or, he is now. Johnny wasn’t this whole before he met Mark, and it still took some time before he became the man he is now. He thinks that Mark overlooks the contributions he made to helping Johnny grow and become who he is.

They were young, though not so reckless, when they first met. They’re in their thirties now, and Johnny likes to think that they have more control. Perhaps they don’t, though, and life is just constantly something that will continue to slip from their grasp.

Johnny doesn’t really care so long as Mark isn’t one of those things that falls from his arms.

They will be older when they start their family, but hopefully wiser, and Johnny will wake up to see Mark’s smile every morning. He’ll get to see Mark. Just Mark. That’s all that matters. Johnny wants a family, sure, but, more than anything, he wants Mark. In every sort of sense. Mark is his start and his end and his in-betweens, and Johnny is content with that.

When Mark comes back, he’ll hold him close.

Mark thinks that calling it mourning is fucking stupid, but Jeno tells him to let go and recognize that he’s lost something important. Someone important. Even if Mark never actually lost him, and Johnny is sitting across from him at a fucking restaurant surrounded by their friends.

Beside him, Jeno elbows him, and Donghyuck clears his throat before flagging down the waiter to order another round of beers. Mark doesn’t need to drink more—he’s never liked alcohol, and he knows he’s out of character when Johnny’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

Beer has never had a nice taste to Mark. Johnny had always laughed at him—wrinkles gathering at the edges of his eyes and smile wide—when Mark would try a sip of his beer before pushing it away in disgust. Mark still doesn’t like it, but it’s cheap and Donghyuck is paying for him.

That night, sprawled across his bed, Mark thinks about how tired Johnny looked. All the dark circles under his eyes and the way his smile never felt as full as it used to. He thinks about how there still isn’t closure. There’s no communication. Just a whole lot of empty space.

Johnny deserves better. They both do, Mark thinks, and ending things on such a shitty note feels wrong. _Is wrong_. Mark’s intentions were never to hurt Johnny, even if it was an inevitability. Even if they were both destined to hurt one another eventually.

So he calls Johnny. On a Monday. And, in retrospect, he thinks that maybe he should stop this whole thing of stirring the pot on the worst day of the week. But he’s hesitant to ruin Fridays. Or Saturdays. Or Sundays. And for a moment Mark wonders if Johnny will mind.

It’s one ring. One ring before Johnny picks up the call. He’s breathless and Mark can hear the shower running in the background. It’s silent between them. Mark isn’t sure what to say—how to start this conversation.

I’m sorry? How are you? Hello? They all feel reckless and insensitive and Mark’s been enough of those things to last him a lifetime. In the far recesses of his mind, a voice tells him to ask to start again. To try things all over again and to work back to what they had. Mark doesn’t think he deserves that.

“Mark?” Johnny’s voice is embroiled in disbelief and he understands why. He started this. “Hello?”

“Hi,” he starts, hesitant. “Hi, Johnny.”

“I—wait, I—”

There’s the sound of footsteps and the water stopping before Johnny is back. “Hi. Hi, sorry, I—sorry. Hi.”

They’re both speechless, and it makes Mark feel a little better. There’s fifteen minutes before he needs to leave for work. Fifteen. He can talk on the bus, but he always feels like a fucking nuisance when he does that. Johnny knows his commute. Knows that time is limited.

“What—are you okay? Is everything okay? Do you need something?” Johnny asks, voice fast. “Your stuff is all still here if you need help moving back in, I—”

“Are you free? Tonight?” Mark bites the inside of his cheek. Why. Why the fuck did he say that. Fucking imbecile.

There’s a choking sound as Johnny wheezes. “Yeah, I—I can ask Jae if I can borrow his car—”

“Not. Not for that,” Mark whispers. “I just... let’s just grab dinner. Or, I don’t know. Let’s just have dinner, Johnny. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” says Johnny, sincere. “Of course.”

Mark doesn’t know where he’s going or what he’s doing as he hums. “Okay, I—I need to go. Work, yeah? But I’ll message you after. I... It’ll be late. Is that okay?”

“It’s always okay,” Johnny murmurs softly. “If you want, I can make the reservation. At our favorite place.”

“Sure,” Mark says. “Uh, make it for—”

“Eight thirty. I know.” Johnny’s voice holds a fondness that can’t be contained. It never was to begin with. Never. “And you’ll be late, so I should actually make it for nine, but I never learn my lesson. So, eight thirty it is.”

Swallowing Mark nods into his empty apartment, Chenle still asleep behind his closed bedroom door. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’ll see you then.”

“See you, Mark.” Pause. “I love you.”

He chokes back a sob, unable to say anything. There’s nothing Mark could say to make anything hurt less. He has a job to work and things to do but all he can think about is how much he misses this. Them.

“And I know that you love me, too,” Johnny adds before ending the call.

There are several beats before Chenle’s door opens and he stands there, quiet. His arms are held open and Mark allows himself five minutes to cry and wonder where the fuck he went wrong. How to fix things. What to fix.

Everything is confusing, yet the world around him doesn’t stop.

When he walks into his classroom, he’s a different Mark—one who only knows the world that is in his immediate vicinity and nothing more. Here, he can pretend that everything is fine.

The clock on the wall ticks. These walls won’t hold the floods back forever.

That’s how that goes. Johnny shivers in the middle of their bedroom, water dripping from his hair. There are things he needs to do—places to be, people to see. They can wait for now, though. Or, that’s what Johnny tells himself anyways. He needs to think first.

The first question he poses for himself, as he towel-dries his hair, is whether or not he’s still in love with Mark Lee. And the answer is simple. He is. There is not a doubt in his mind that he loves Mark still. It hurts _because_ he loves him.

The second question he poses for himself is harder and comes nested with other questions. Is he upset with Mark? As in, does he forgive him? Is this whole thing repairable? It’s difficult, and Johnny thinks that they’ve, along the way, been reverted to temporary strangers, which is weird and difficult to navigate without Mark still beside him. Though that’s how they got to be like this, anyways, he supposes. This won’t be a quick fix, though it isn’t a problem he can solve on his own. They need to solve it together. They will. Johnny is sure of it.

At the root of it all, though, is Johnny figuring out where they went wrong. What path Mark’s mind took him down to convince himself that Johnny would one day think he could do better. Because, Johnny thinks, he can’t. Mark is everything he could ask from a partner and more.

Mark is kind and considerate and full of more love than he knows what to do with. He’s alive and full of emotion and Johnny knows that the things that come easy for him are harder for Mark. His love for Mark is the patient type. Unrelenting yet gentle love. Though never, not once, has Johnny felt like it’s an obligation. He knows he has his own vices—navigates them clumsily and with Mark’s hand in his. Johnny is emotional in a different way, louder and less afraid of consequences. There is no filter for his mind.

Obstacles present themselves in the form of communication, and Johnny was under the impression that they had worked through it all. He wonders how long this concern had festered in Mark’s mind for it to grow this big, overwhelming him until the guilt ate his love alive.

Johnny knows that it isn’t his job to decipher Mark’s mind. Relationships aren’t only guided by one person. And, in such a way, Johnny still feels blindsided. Temporarily betrayed. They won’t emerge from this unscathed. There are things to be mended and patched and repaired. It is the reality of a fragmented relationship, that, if you wish to put it back together, nothing will be the exact same once your task is finished. And Johnny acknowledges that. His love for Mark overcomes this fact and pushes him towards rebuilding things.

They are a constant work in progress, striving towards an ever-increasing optimum. Chasing a moving target is difficult. Johnny thinks that they can do it.

Picking back up his phone, he dials a number. “Hi, auntie. You’re open late tonight, right? Mark and I will be there.”

The restaurant is something of a second home. It’s the restaurant they ate at looking for the apartment. It’s the first restaurant they ate at when they moved into their apartment. It’s a restaurant filled with bits and pieces of Mark’s heart and memories. Nothing has changed.

They’ve changed, though, Mark thinks. And it’s funny because Johnny still talks about reservations when Mark knows you can’t make them here. He’s simply sweet-talked the auntie who owns it to always keeping a table open for them. It used to be every other Friday.

Monday is weird.

It’s a deviation from their schedule and the auntie corrals them towards their usual table with gusto, crowing about how she hasn’t seen them in forever—that she was starting to fear they had moved away without telling her. Mark swallows his guilt in apologies.

“You know how life is,” Johnny says, easy. “It gets away from you, without you realizing.”

“Regardless,” she replies, “I’m glad to see you both again! I’ll have them start your usual. Do you want your usual beer for while you wait?”

“I’m okay.” He glances at Mark. “For now.”

Clapping her hands together, she smiles. “Of course, of course,” she says before bustling off. Mark can still hear her in the back, speaking excitedly about how they’ve finally returned. “It’s been a while,” shouts the auntie to her son in the kitchen. “I’m so happy.”

There are a million things that Mark wants to say. He wants to work through them methodically, but he thinks that he should learn to prioritize. Johnny looks sunken in on himself—familiar and yet still the man Mark fell in love with. Continues to fall in love with. Every day.

He tangles his fingers, untangles them, presses his palms against his thighs and then relaxes his shoulders. Mark doesn’t know how to start. Not that there is a start anymore. There was. And then he made an end. That’s why they’re here, sitting in silence.

Mark tries to will himself back into a whole—or as whole as he can get—though it’s futile, really. The way Johnny looks at him is cautious and gentle and afraid and Mark hates it. He is the cause and he knows it, though it doesn’t make him hate it any less.

“It has been a while,” Johnny begins, hesitantly. “I haven’t been here since... Well, we’re here now, so that’s what matters. Right?”

Mark swallows, nodding. There’s no direction to any of this. An unfamiliar rift exists between them. “Right. That’s what matters.”

Johnny, in one stride, crosses it. His words are simple and cut down to the truth that Mark is trying desperately to bury. “I miss you.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Mark mutters, eyes low. “Not at all.”

“Why not?” Johnny asks. “Why wouldn’t I miss you? Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because—"

“Because I deserve better?” Johnny’s tone is flat as he says it, Mark’s heart curling in on itself in response. “I can’t get better than you, Mark. You’re sort of it for me. Like, there’s no one else. There’s not going to be anyone else. Do you get that? Or am I the only one?”

“Only one?” Lifting his head up, Mark furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Am I the only one who took these last ten years seriously?” He prods at Mark with his gaze, lips pulled down in a frown. “I know this isn’t the place to have this conversation, but it’s been hard to—”

“It’s been hard to reach me. I know,” whispers Mark. “I know.”

Johnny falls quiet, hands hidden under the table. “So? Am I?”

“Of course not!” Mark leans forward, shaking his head. “God, no, I—no. Not at all. I... These last ten years with you... God, they mean everything to me, Johnny. They really fucking do. I promise.”

“Then why did we—why are we apart? Just because,” Johnny gestures between them, “you feel one way doesn’t mean it’s true, Mark. You didn’t—why didn’t you talk to me about any of this? Why didn’t we have a conversation rather than having to spend the past month and a half pretending we’re strangers?”

Mark is _scared_. That’s why. He’s fucking petrified of the future. Mark is fucking afraid that the past ten years will, at one point, mean nothing to Johnny. To him. To either of them. That everything will fall to pieces in front of his very eyes and Mark will be left with nothing but a broken heart. That he will eventually ruin this, as well. Broken hearts now are the better option.

And, in retrospect, isn’t that what he has now? Isn’t it what they both have? Broken hearts? Over ten years there was no loss of love, just change, and Mark doesn’t know how to distinguish the two on his own. He doesn’t know how to ask for help. That’s where the real problem is, he guesses. He doesn’t know to communicate. Ten fucking years in a relationship and Mark still can’t fucking communicate. He’s a walking disaster. Johnny does deserve better. Fucking _hell_ does Johnny deserve better than what Mark has to offer him.

Sitting there, Mark’s chest feels tight.

“What,” Mark croaks, “am I supposed to say? That I’m afraid you’re going to realize you could’ve done better? That this is all I have? Johnny, tell me, because I don’t know what the right way to approach this sort of shit.”

“Just like that.” Johnny’s voice is even.

“It’s not—”

“I know it’s not that easy,” Johnny says, quiet. He looks deep in thought before he nods, expression distant. “Let’s... eat. Okay? Let’s eat and talk about this after.”

Mark, in his seat, can do nothing but accept Johnny’s offer. It feels like an ultimatum. Like he’s been presented the opportunity to stand up and walk away, if ending the relationship was what Mark really wanted. It wasn’t, though. It isn’t. Mark’s mind was plagued by uncertainty and anxiety and now there’s a canyon full of misunderstanding between him and the man he loves.

They eat in silence, they pay in silence, they walk in silence. At the pier they’re faceless, nameless strangers to the crowd of people that surround them. Here, they’re given anonymity they aren’t allowed in their own personal spaces. It’s refreshing and loosens the binds around Mark’s mind.

Mark isn’t sure how to start—or continue—the conversation. He’s content enough to walk by Johnny’s side and listen to the world exist around him. Around _them_. Because they’re beside one another, again, after a time apart. And, while short, it surely felt like forever.

When you spend ten years with a person, time spent physically apart becomes some extension of the norm. It isn’t what Mark means by distance. There’s an emotional reprieve—a wedge—that he drove between them. In a month and a half, Mark thinks that Johnny has become stranger in a dream.

“You aren’t easy to love, Mark.” Johnny’s tone is cool and even, his voice cutting over the sound of the people around them. Mark swallows back the bile that rises up in his throat. “You aren’t easy to love, but I love you because being in love isn’t supposed to be easy. I loved you. I love you. I will love you.”

Mark closes his eyes and lets the pieces fall where they may.

“Fresh start,” Mark says. Chenle raises an eyebrow. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Did you hear what I said?” Chenle shoots back, waving his hand in Mark’s direction. “There’s no fresh start after ten years. But, okay, lover boy.”

Donghyuck clears his throat, heads turning towards him. “I say you meet up with him.”

Turning towards Donghyuck, Mark shakes his head. “I did meet up with Johnny—"

“Not Johnny, Mark,” Donghyuck says, pushing himself off the couch. “You need to meet up with Dejun and get whatever the fuck goes on up in your head settled before you go wasting ten years again.”

Nodding slowly, Mark slouches backwards. Dejun. There’s a lot of fuzziness and a lot of clarity associated with that name, and some sort of fucked up, made-up trauma that’s festered in Mark’s head for a decade now, even when he thought it was gone. Which, Mark truly did think it was gone. He’s still not completely sure what dug it up and planted it in better soil and cared for it until it bloomed into roses with thorns too sharp, but something did, and Mark is living with those consequences.

Donghyuck had a front row seat to all the bullshit that happened and the year afterwards where Mark boiled in his insecurities that were probably made up to begin with. They were young and dumb and vicious, and Mark thinks that they weren’t ready. Maybe now they can talk.

“I don’t even know where he is,” Mark mutters, shaking his head. “I haven’t spoken to any of them since senior week.”

Jaemin’s mouth opens and closes before Jeno cuts in. “Chenle knows. His friend, Renjun—he’s friends with Yukhei. Who’s friends with Dejun. He knows.”

“Ah.” Mark nods his head slowly. “Okay.”

“Okay?” asks Jaemin, aghast. “Is it that easy?”

“I fucked up once,” Mark says, standing, “and I’m not going to get another fucking chance. I’m doing shit right this time, and if that means speaking with Dejun, then so be it.”

There’s a shake of his head as Chenle sighs. “I have no idea what demon possessed you to have you pull a complete one-eighty in the span of two weeks, but I’m liking it.”

“The things love makes you do,” mutters Donghyuck. “Disgusting.”

“You and Jaehyun are literally engaged,” Jeno points out, jabbing a finger in Donghyuck’s direction.

“Yes,” Donghyuck claps his hands together, “and I need Johnny and Mark to figure their shit out as soon as possible so we can send out the wedding party packages. We cannot have bad air between our best men. That would be fucking weird. I will not tolerate it.”

“Are we ever gonna get to know how you two figured it out?” Jaemin asks, flopping over Chenle, cackling when Chenle pushes him off in response to the wet kiss he leaves on his cheek. There’s shouting and yelling, Chenle screaming at Jaemin. “Chenle, _shut up_ , we’re dealing with Mark’s issues right now. Yours can wait.”

“I don’t know.”

Mark heaves a sigh. He doesn’t want to jinx anything. There is a lot of fear associated with letting the truth leak out prematurely. So much of what has transpired has seeped beyond the walls that he and Johnny had built around them and smothered those that consider themselves close. Mark wants to keep what should be between only them there for as long as possible.

“Don’t share if you don’t want to,” Jeno interjects, shoving Jaemin’s head away from him as he becomes the next target of his affection. He’s shrugging as he stands up, stretching out his arms. “Figure out what you gotta figure out and let us know when you’re ready.”

Holding out his hand, Chenle smiles. “Phone. Hand it over. I’ll put Dejun’s number in, but I’ll also set up the meeting for you. Sound like a deal?”

Mark is hesitant, but hands over his phone anyways, scowling as Jaemin inputs the code to unlock his phone. “Okay.”

“How does tomorrow at seven sound?”

“Su—what?”

Grinning, Chenle nods. “Great!”

The Mark in front of Johnny, tonight, is different. Every single day, however, he has been different. There’s a certain fragility to him that Johnny feels apprehension towards. Around them, within them, life continues forward, regardless of what goes on between them.

Mark leaves for work every morning in the quiet of the rising sun, and Johnny awakens minutes later to a fresh pot of coffee. Their daily lives don’t change much, even if they have. Words still hang between them, and regardless of what they want, there is no starting over.

When there is ten years between you and the man you love, there is no way to restart. Too much history blocks the way, and Johnny would be lying if he said he wasn’t hurting. That he wasn’t broken. And at any point in time he could walk away. Could’ve walked away.

Taeyong asks if he’s being too forgiving—too generous to pick up the broken pieces of what Mark left behind. “It’s like Mark broke something made of glass and you’re the only one cleaning it up. And you’re hurting yourself in the process. It’s not your job to fix him.”

Not that Johnny is fixing him. From the outside, he realizes, it must look bizarre. They must think that Johnny is trapped. It’s far from it, really. If anything, it’s the opposite. Mark is trapped by Johnny’s side. Nothing is one-sided. There’s mutual growing that must be done.

Johnny must learn to read Mark beyond what is given to him at face value. To feel comfortable digging deeper and throw away the idea that they must always be happy. Relationships are never perfect. There will be cracks and holes and he must feel comfort in that. Accept it. It’s not to say that he should try to keep a failing relationship alive. They’re not broken, it’s simply a fact of life that there will be bad times among the good.

Reaching forward, Johnny runs his fingers through Mark’s hair. There’s the smallest delay before Mark turns towards him. His pen clatters to the table as Johnny presses a kiss to his forehead.

“You’re thinking. Hard.” Johnny pulls him closer. “What are you thinking about?”

“Should I accept Chenle’s invitation?” Mark flinches. “Or, I guess I should call it his plan.”

“Do you think it would help you?”

Shaking his head, Mark frowns. “I don’t know. Can it hurt? Can it help? I feel like it’s been so long, it can’t do much, can it?”

“Then it’s up to you,” Johnny murmurs against his forehead. Mark blinks up at him, eyes wide. “If you go, I’ll head into Seoul with you. Spend some time with Jae and Hyuck. And then we can head back together after all is said and done. If not, we can go to our usual restaurant.”

Mark’s sigh is heavy and deep and aches in Johnny’s bones as he leans back. “What did I do to deserve yo—”

“Stop,” Johnny interrupts. “We talked about this. We’re not using that word anymore. We’re not...”

He falters as Mark looks stricken. “I’m sorry, it slipped out, I...”

“I know.” Johnny tugs on Mark’s hands, which stretch the hem of his shirt. “I know it’s hard. For both of us. We’re both trying to break bad habits. We’re both trying to fix things we thought didn’t need to be fixed. I know. But you have me, Mark. Isn’t that enough?”

There’s uncertainty and fear as Mark’s fingers tangle with his, words coming out all in one breath, strangled towards the end. “I can’t help it. I’m so afraid. I can’t stop it from being in my thoughts. I want you here so badly, but I’m afraid. I don’t know why.”

“I’ll love you,” Johnny murmurs, “for a long time. The longest time. I’ll love you until these worries don’t exist anymore. And I’ll love you after that, too. I love you. We’ll work this out. I’ll relearn what I need to know about you. And you’ll do the same for me.”

“We’ll figure it out.” His grip on Johnny’s hands loosen as he inhales. “I should meet with Dejun. I just... I think it’d be okay. It might help. Maybe just to hear what he remembers from back then.”

“And I’ll be waiting for you for when you’re finished. And then we can come home. Together.”

Mark’s gaze is lighter as he nods. “Home. Together.”

How does one begin a conversation with someone who broke their heart? Mark isn’t sure. He could ask Johnny, if he really wanted to, but he’s already asked him for so much. Mark doesn’t think he can justify asking for more. Which is how he ends up in Seoul on a Sunday.

And it’s not that Johnny doesn’t know. Johnny, in fact, supports this. Pushes Mark towards some sort of resolution, even if it isn’t the easiest, or the quickest. _It’s the most thorough_ , Johnny had told him. _And I’m here for you_ , he had added. Not as an afterthought. Affirmation.

So Mark is in Seoul, on a Sunday, Johnny eating convenience store food with Donghyuck and Jaemin and Jeno while he stands in front of a fancy restaurant and debates the consequences of doing an about-face and high tailing it out of there. It’s 7:01, after all. Dejun is late.

When he does, Dejun is standing there. He looks different, though Mark argues, in his head, that he must look different, too. There’s been over ten years between then and now. They’re different people, though Mark isn’t sure that he’s changed all that much. Mark is still uncertain and lacks confidence in important sorts of ways.

And Dejun’s voice is still gentle, and his smile is still the smallest bit mischievous, and Mark can pick out the parts that he fell for when he was eighteen and reckless. He can pick out the parts that forced them apart when he was twenty and listless. Things change. Others do not.

“How much did Chenle pay you to come out here?” Dejun asks, tilting his head to the side.

“Nothing,” says Mark, shaking his head. “I’m just... Closing loose ends. That’s all.”

Dejun raises an eyebrow before throwing his head back to laugh. “Cryptic as ever, I see.”

“I’m trying to make things work with Johnny,” Mark says firmly, “but there are still things I need to tidy up before I can move on.”

“It’s been years. _Ten years_.”

“I know it has. You think I don’t know that?” His voice has raised, and others look on, prompting Mark to hunch over in shame. “You think I don’t know that I should’ve fucking figured this shit out sooner?”

“You always were,” Dejun waves a hand, “kinda stuck in your head. I knew that and took advantage of it. So, on that front, it’s my fault. I knew it was gonna fuck you up in the head, and, back then, I think I wanted it to.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“I know it is.”

Mark, when he was younger, believed that his first love would be his only love. When he met Dejun, he thought that he was right. And in that fantasy, everything fell apart, all at once.

Donghyuck has been there for all of it—almost. Almost. He was there for the aftermath.

In the span of two years, Mark watched a lot of things fall apart. Friendships—both his own and others—family, relationships. The one constant in his life was Dejun, and he thinks that he capitalized on that. Took advantage of it. Didn’t realize until it was too late. If Mark was in another place in life—if he was the Mark of today—he thinks that Dejun’s words wouldn’t have settled so deeply in his brain and taken root. He was fragile and impressionable, and in retrospect, Mark doesn’t think it should affect him. It does, though.

People are fucked up and things are fucked up, and Mark wonders if it was him who kept it so close to him. Mark wonders if he was the one who fostered the thoughts, cared for them, and let them bloom. Perhaps he likes suffering. He isn’t sure. It doesn’t matter. (It does.)

“I regret what I said,” Dejun says softly, cutting through Mark’s thoughts. “If I was a better man, I would have said something to you sooner. But I’m not. So I didn’t. And I’m sorry that it’s taken so long for you to get closure. Like I said. If I was a better man this would’ve happened sooner.”

Mark also thinks that he could’ve reached out for help—that he could’ve learned to let things go and let himself heal. It was a mind game of sorts. Mark had convinced himself that he was fine. And Johnny’s presence was healing. He just couldn’t make the final push. And that was on him. _Is_ on him. But, beyond all the fucked up, convoluted thoughts that settle in his head is a love that he wants to salvage. So he’s here.

“You told me that everything was my fault,” Mark whispers. “I believed you. And I still believe you.”

Dejun, across the table, tangles his fingers together as he asks for more time to decide what they want to order. “I was a vindictive asshole in college. I wanted you to hurt.”

“I did.”

“I shouldn’t have said it,” he shakes his head, “You’re sugar-coating it. I wasn’t that nice, Mark.”

Scrunching his nose, he’s nodding as he scours the menu, unsure of what to say. A simple, “I know,” doesn’t suffice, but he offers it anyways. Doesn’t know why.

By the time he had realized how deeply Dejun’s words had rooted themselves in his mind, Mark had moved towards another stage in his life. He had convinced himself that they were buried deep enough that they would never resurface. Stricken, that wasn’t the case.

It’s fucked up, really, the way that Mark hadn’t realized what a large load he had carried behind him as time went on. As collateral, it hurt the others around him. He moved recklessly, convinced it didn’t exist. Mark should’ve known better. He does know better. Now.

“I don’t know what kind of closure I can offer you,” Dejun says, frowning. “I was in the wrong and I like to think I’m a better person now. It doesn’t mean that I can fix whatever you’ve got going on up in your head, though. I could try, but I think it would hurt more than help.”

“I don’t want you to fix it,” whispers Mark. “I just want to know where I went wrong. So I won’t do it again.”

“You didn’t... you didn’t do anything wrong, Mark. I was the stupid one. But, I’m not sure how to convince you of that.”

Dejun closes his menu and Mark does the same. They order the same thing—this feels like déjà vu—and Mark wrings his hands as he thinks about it. Because it is hard to erase firmly held beliefs. Mark has spent a better part of his life thinking that he is the issue. That he will be the issue.

“I think,” Dejun says, “you need to trust Johnny.” Mark scoffs. As if he hasn’t tried that before. “No. Really. Mark, you need to trust him. He’s more honest than I was... Than I am. He would tell you if there was something wrong. You can’t hide things from him.”

“Hypocrite.”

“I know I’m being hypocritical,” bites back Dejun. “I _know_. But this is why we didn’t work. We bottle shit up and then let it explode. Johnny isn’t like that. He needs openness.”

“How much has Chenle told you?”

“Enough.” His voice is barely audible. “Just enough.”

To Mark, enough sounds like everything. Enough sounds like Dejun knows the extent to which he fucked up. Hands curling into fists under the table, he tries his hardest not to bow his head. He knows—Mark knows that he keeps shit locked up in his mind until they’re too strong. Johnny had begged Mark to let him in—to know what goes on in his mind. And Mark is getting better at what he should’ve been doing for the last ten years. Coaxing his mind open and letting Johnny know what goes on. Everything is still jagged and broken, but they’re getting there.

“Enough,” Mark echoes.

Dejun is frustrated. He can read as much from the way his mouth is pressed into a thin line and his eyebrows bunch up on his face. Neither of them, Mark thinks, are good at this communication thing. This openness thing. It’s why they broke apart. One of the reasons they broke apart. It was a fast and furious sort of love that crashed and burned in the most violent sort of way.

“I hurt you,” Dejun says carefully, “but you’re the one who planted my words and let them grow.”

“I know.” Mark picks at the edge of his napkin, smiling as the waiter places his food down in front of him. The wisps of a thank you trail after the waiter who pays him no mind.

“Not that it justifies what I said or did,” Dejun says slowly. Carefully. He’s skirting around the edges of years of a failed relationship and the fragments he didn’t know he left behind. “ _Especially_ what I did. I think I should’ve apologized sooner. At least for that.”

There’s a bitter laugh, and the food Mark ordered makes him sick. “Yeah?” he asks, hands bunched up in his lap. “You think? Everything worked out, but I think that’s what fucked me up the most. That someone who I thought deserved me hurt me. I thought I only deserved people like that.”

Ten years, Mark thinks, is a long time to let something fester and grow. Where the switch finally flipped is unclear. All he knows is that it happened. And it’s over. And he will learn from it. He is learning from it. Mark is grateful for patience and love and kindness, and degrees of those things that he isn’t sure he deserves anymore. Johnny could have walked away. Had every right to. Mark is relearning what it means to love Johnny. Properly this time. Openly. Without hesitation. And relearning what it means to accept love.

To love and to be loved, are two different things, though not independent of one another. Mark, for years, believed in separating them from one another, refusing the acknowledge the overlap. Now, he realizes, they coexist. They build off one another. Mark learns to love from being loved. Learns to be loved from loving.

There’s no such thing as erasing pain. It will continue to exist, even if just as a distant memory. Mark acknowledges that. Now, at least. He looks at Dejun and realizes that he’s always had the power to take a deep breath and keep walking. Pluck the weeds. Make a garden.

There is no point in thinking about what he could’ve done better, he supposes. It’s better, he thinks, to embrace the pain and his mistakes. To learn from them. Remember that it’s okay to hurt, and let the pain continue to exist. Remember that there are those that will help.

“I hope you know now,” Dejun says, “that you deserve more.”

Mark waves down a wait as he nods. “I’m getting there.”

Johnny had known, in bits and pieces, of Dejun Xiao. There’s no face to the name, but there’s a steadily building story. When Mark mentions him, in passing, that night, there’s a big question mark that begins to grow in Johnny’s mind. He’s a previously unknown variable with a larger effect size than Johnny could have ever predicted. He is the man that tore Mark’s subconscious into small pieces, planting them so far away from one another, there was no growth.

But Mark harbors no anger. Just confusion, sadness, and doubt. Johnny won’t—can’t—pretend to understand what goes through Mark’s mind. It takes weeks for Johnny to understand it all, and even then, he cannot. There’s a growing story, and the more he knows, the more his heart aches.

He can’t be upset, though. He can’t be angry towards a man he doesn’t know when Mark seems to have found some sort of peace. Mark, who sits at the kitchen table, compiling a spread sheet of counselors for them to see. There’s a determination in him that Johnny recognizes; it’s simply weird to see it put towards their relationship. What was once an easy-going, seemingly unbreakable thing now requires work.

Ten years ago, they fell into one another, and there was no going back, really. Johnny is a hopeless romantic and fully aware of the fact that Mark is it for him. His friends had laughed, shook their heads, and told him to take it slow. And Johnny will be the first to say that they took it slow. Perhaps too slow. He’ll always wonder if there were ways to avoid these fractures in their relationship. It’s too late, but he’ll wonder, anyways.

The Mark that stood in front of him was never complete, and that’s such a foreign idea to Johnny. Broken people can look put together, though, so he’s not sure why it throws him for such a loop. Why it leaves him looking at Mark in confusion in the early morning, wondering how far the two Marks overlap. Johnny realizes, though, that there’s a dichotomy between his own selves, as well.

“Are you okay?”

Johnny blinks. “Huh? Me?”

“Yeah,” putting down his pen, Mark beckons him over, “because you’ve been, uh, staring at me for the past ten minutes. And I know it’s pretty early in the morning, but I don’t think me putting together an Excel spreadsheet is all that interesting.”

“I’m just realizing,” Johnny speaks carefully, watching Mark’s face, “that there’s still a lot we have to learn about one another.”

There’s acceptance and a sort of guilt on his face as Mark nods. He doesn’t speak until Johnny walks forward, taking his hands. “Yeah. There is. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not just you. There’s growing and learning I need to do about myself, too, you know.” Johnny scrambles forward as he watches Mark’s face fall. “No. Mark, listen to me.”

“You can leave. There’s always a way out.”

“I don’t _want_ a way out,” Johnny squeezes his hands, “I want a way _forward_. For both of us.”

Johnny wants to help Mark let go of everything that Dejun had sowed and plant something new. Relationships aren’t one-way streets and growing as a person doesn’t have to be a lonely endeavor. Together, he hopes that they’ll come out of this stronger. It’ll take time—maybe more than Johnny wants to give it—but the end result will be worth it.

In the back of his drawer, the ring is, for the moment, forgotten.

“Good morning.”

Mark opens his eyes to look at Johnny. The morning is quiet, and Mark resists the urge to curl further into the blankets and sleep away the day. They can’t, though. There are things to do, like finishing the lesson plans for the next unit and cleaning the bathroom. He should prioritize between the items on their to-do list, though he’s never been particularly good at that.

“Morning,” Mark groans, face buried in his pillow. “What time is it?”

“Uh,” pause, “seven in the morning.”

“Johnny, it’s a _Saturday_. Why are you up already?” He opens an eye to peer at Johnny who smiles sheepishly. “... You’re plotting something. What’re you planning?”

“We’re making brunch, aren’t we? Before our appointment,” Johnny says, hand gentle against Mark’s neck.

There’s a buffer period as Mark digests what Johnny has to say before nodding. Their appointment. “We are. But brunch. Not breakfast.”

“Close enough, right?”

Johnny stands and Mark contemplates. As usual. It’s hard not to be stuck in your head when you’re in your thirties and that’s all you know how to do. He’s only coaxed from bed by the sound of Johnny moving around in the kitchen, a reminder that their day has begun.

 _Their day_.

There’s a dual ownership now, and Mark is navigating that. It was that way for years, and then suddenly not. They’re settling back into it, but it’s still something uneven. Once smooth, now weathered and worn. Mark polishes it, bit by bit, embracing things again. Slowly.

Their steps to some sense of normalcy are gentle and tentative, and yet steady and closing gaps that once existed. Counseling and therapy, together and apart, have helped to begin to close the open wounds that have rested in their minds. It’s all poetic sounding.

Mark doesn’t want it to sound so pretty. The reality is that these wounds will never fully close. There’s nothing beautiful or romantic or delicate of the pain that they’ve gone through. They are going through. It’s a reality. Everyone is stuck in some sort of shit.

Everyone figures it out differently.

Johnny, in the kitchen, hums along to his favorite song, and Mark is reminded that shit sucks, shit will suck, shit has sucked, but it’s getting better. And it’ll be worse again, eventually. And then get better. It’s a cycle. Around them, the world continues to move regardless of whether they’re ready to move with it. It’s one thing to acknowledge that, though, and another thing to walk alongside it. Mark is still struggling to recover where he fell flat. Maybe he’ll never catch back up.

It happens.

He’s still trying to accept things that fell apart over a decade ago. Mark’s mind is so desperate to cling to things that it shouldn’t. He thinks that everyone’s mind must work that way. He’s not really sure, though. There is separation between Mark’s reality and that of others. Though, there’s a difference between everyone’s reality and that of the world, so Mark figures that he isn’t special in that regard.

“What are you making?” Mark asks, wrapping his arms around Johnny.

“French toast,” answers Johnny, “and eggs. And pancakes. And bacon.”

“That,” he pinches Johnny’s side, “is so much fucking food. It’s just us. If you make that much, let’s bring some to Chenle and Jaemin before we go to our appointment? I can’t eat all that.”

“You’ve gotten too skinny, though.” Johnny turns, gently knocking their heads together.

“Force-feeding me all the food we own will not help that.”

“It’s also almost about to expire,” adds Johnny after a drawn-out silence.

Mark presses his lips together, inhaling deeply through his nose. “... Johnny. This is why we make grocery lists and determine how much we’re actually going to need.”

“You always made the list,” whines Johnny, flipping the french toast. “So when it was just me, I kind of just… went shopping.”

“Yes, I made the lists because you don’t make lists,” Mark starts the coffee, “and you buy everything that says buy one, get one free.”

“It’s a sale!” argues Johnny, waving the spatula in Mark’s direction. “It’s a _deal_.”

“It’s a capitalist trap!” Mark says, waving the measuring spoon in the air.

Johnny shrugs, plating food. “I accept my fate.”

Mark catches himself rolling his eyes, fond smile on his face. They have changed. Things have changed. Everything has changed, but Johnny’s truthfulness to his character has always shown through. Mark loves it. Loves him.

“Donghyuck told me that both you and I should be expecting packages in the mail sometime this week,” Mark says, pressing his hip against the counter. “He said, and I quote, ‘Who the fuck knows why this shit is taking so long to ship! But you better RSVP immediately, asshole.’”

“Sounds like him,” mutters Johnny, laughing under his breath. “Anyways, both of us have verbally committed to being in the wedding parties already. I don’t know why he’s so stressed about it.”

“He wants Instagram verification and validation,” Mark explains, breathing deeply.

And, for what it’s worth, Mark thinks that Donghyuck deserves it, having planned the wedding almost entirely on his own. Others have lent a hand here or there though, for the most part, it’s been him and no one else. Jaehyun had complained about feeling useless. Donghyuck has always been like that, though. Independent and strong willed and confident. On the outside. They all have their vices—their strengths and weaknesses—and Donghyuck is no exception. He’s simply too prideful to allow himself to fall to them. Mark could only imagine.

“Well, we’ll give it to him, I guess,” Johnny mutters, placing plates of french toast on the table. “I want him to plan our wedding, so.”

Mark’s head whips to the side so fast he sees fucking stars. It’s so like Johnny to toss that around so casually, so soon after rebuilding. Though, Mark supposes, Johnny did tell him that they would get married one day, two years into their relationship. It’s just so... Johnny.

“Yeah, well,” Mark sets the table, empty plates and cutlery looking lonely, “you can handle all of that.”

“Don’t worry! I will.”

“Put the coffee back.”

“But we—”

“Johnny. Put the coffee back.” Mark stares, firm, until Johnny’s shoulders are drooping, and the coffee is back on the shelf. He can envision the six bags back in their apartment, all in various states of consumption. They don’t need more.

In fact, Mark has been tossing the idea around in his head of them going on a caffeine cleanse for several days. He thinks better of it, however, watching Johnny consume four cups of coffee before their day even begins. It will have to be a slow process. A weaning.

Mark watches as Johnny piles cans of Spam and ramen into their cart. He should be horrified—he knows this from the way Johnny stares at him with wide eyes and a mischievous grin—but all he can feel is resignation as he continues to push the cart forward.

Things have settled into a new sort of normal. They learn to walk towards and beside one another, rather than around, and they learn to talk, instead of staring at the back of their heads and hoping that they can hear one another’s thoughts. It’s a process. Counseling and therapy help.

There are remnants of who they were, and hints of who they will be, and it’s all something that Mark, so used to being unchanging, is learning to accept. It’s hard, though. Sort of like wading into the ocean, waves just tall enough to hit you in the chest. Sometimes he falters. Sometimes, Mark’s ass hits the ocean floor and the tide keeps him under, and it’s a struggle to get his head back above water. Johnny helps him, but Mark knows he needs to learn how to stand back on his own two feet. How to grab a hold of his own fucked up demons and toss them.

Toss them far off into the distance because they will never actually go away. And Mark is learning to become comfortable with that idea. It’s a process. Everything in life is a process, though. Mark is learning and Johnny is learning, about one another and themselves.

This is something they should have done forever and a day ago. But Mark loves this man—thinks he will love this man until the day he dies—and so he figures that now is better than never. They’ve come too far, he thinks, to let this fall apart. They’ll work for it. For a new normal. Even if a new normal means Johnny filling their cart with—

“We do not,” Mark says, slowly, “need ten bags of chips.”

“... You’re right,” Johnny places three back on the shelves, “We only need seven.”

Blinking, Mark pushes the cart forward. Johnny’s victory dance is embarrassing. A lot of things about Johnny are embarrassing, but Mark loves him for it, not in exception of it. Johnny pushes Mark outside of his comfort zone—holds his hand, firmly, and guides them to a sort of existence that Mark wouldn’t think of otherwise.

Johnny is Mark’s guide, much in the same way that Mark is Johnny’s impulse control. It’s all an ever-changing feedback loop, though. They feed each other’s best habits, and sometimes even their worst. It’s not like Mark couldn’t have stopped Johnny from dancing on top of their car that one time. He should have, though. Having the police called on you at seven at night is not exactly the best impression on your new neighbors. It’s hard to reign in Johnny’s excitement and happiness. Sometimes it just tumbles out before Mark can catch it. Catch him.

Johnny is open, and Mark is starting to become more open, and the world continues to spin around them, refusing to wait for them to figure their shit out. So they try their best to function as they stumble around a room that’s a touch too small, trying to find a way out.

Putting away groceries will always be a process, full of chaos filtered through noise streaming from Johnny’s phone. Mark doesn’t recognize this song—it’s probably an artist he found somewhere between then and now. It’s nice, though, and Mark gives himself a moment to just watch Johnny exist in a space that is theirs.

Counseling has helped. There are scars that will never fade, not to sound cliché, but Mark thinks that they shouldn’t. They’re lessons that they must learn from and forgetting them would only increase the likelihood of a repeat. A little pain is worth a lesson, Mark thinks.

“What are you thinking of?” Johnny asks, closing the cabinets.

Mark blinks before letting out a laugh. “Us. You.”

“Oh.” His smile is blinding as he unpacks another bag. “Funny. I was thinking about us—about you—too.”

He tries not to dwell on the ways that they are different and tries to focus on the ways that they exist within one another’s space. There’s a new understanding between them, complete with conversations that Mark does not feel as afraid to approach. Things are different, but ten years of standing beside someone is too long to have things stay the same.

It’s one of the things they discuss—both together and on their own. Mark keeps a journal and Johnny keeps a journal, and they share their thoughts every Sunday evening on their walks. There’s a gentle balance that they stand on right now, though it’s turning into a stable sort of equilibrium. In the future, even if they are thrown off, they will find their way back, without fail.

“I’m glad you’re working that shit in your head out,” Jaemin says, reaching out to knock against the side of Mark’s head. He flinches back as Chenle laughs. “Things are going okay?”

“We just bought the tickets to head to Chicago for the holidays,” Mark swats at Chenle’s grasp, “and we’re looking for a new, better apartment in the area.”

There’s a fondness in his friends’ gazes that Mark takes at face value. Their nagging and their company have helped carry Mark to his destination. Life has been a lesson in learning how to ask for help and accepting that his shortcomings do not have to be permanent. Donghyuck, in the doorway, crosses his arms. He is, perhaps, the fondest of them all.

Between them is a distance that Mark will never be able to cross. He has learned that he does not need to. There should, at all times, still be a distance between people. A maintenance of independence and self, while also still being able to shout across the ravine. He should’ve picked that apart—seen it—and normalized it. He’s learning as he goes.

“I’m glad,” Donghyuck says with a smile.

These are Mark’s people. They have been with him, beside him, for longer than he could ask them to be. Life has dragged them all through the fucking mud and left them out to dry. In the end, they found one another. Mark would not be here without them. If he didn’t have them in his life, Mark is sure that he wouldn’t have made it this far. Donghyuck tells him to give himself more credit, but the fact of the matter is that he can’t.

It’s been a team effort. Without them, Mark would’ve floundered and completely lost his footing. This journey wasn’t easy, and it won’t be in the future. His friends, however, remind him of what good things await him if he keeps going. Sometimes it’s hard for him to put that into perspective. He and Johnny still fight. Mark still battles the uncertainty and the self-deprecating voice in his head that says he isn’t deserving of any of this.

Every single day is a struggle to remind himself that he’s deserving of this and the future that awaits him around the corner. Jaemin tugs on his ear to ground him again.

“The _real_ question is,” Donghyuck says, squeezing himself onto the couch, “ _who_ is going to be your best man at your eventual wedding.”

“That’s a conversation for another day,” replies Mark, flicking his forehead. “But it’s not really fair for you to ask in front of everyone else, you know.”

Jeno laughs, big and wide and healthy, and Mark realizes how far he had dragged them down with him. “I’m just glad to hear that you and Johnny are going to be able to move past these few months.” His face scrunches up, head shaking in tandem. “For a while there, you know…”

“Hey,” interjects Chenle.

Months have never felt so much like years to Mark. They’ve all blurred together at this point, mixed with the world that Mark sprinted so hard to keep up with and the shit that he’s kept bundled up in his head, slowly unpacking it all. The Red Queen spent all her time running just to stay in the same place, and Mark thinks that he finally understands. Just surviving took everything he had; the idea of moving forward is daunting.

But he’s done it; slowly but surely, with maximum effort, just for a measly output. Though it’s unfair, he supposes, to call it measly. Mark needs to remind himself that small goals all add up over time. This is just one step. One part.

“He’s just rubbing off on me,” Mark replies. “After all these years of him so casually talking about how we’re going to get married, I’m finally doing the same.”

“It’s about _time_ he rubs off on you,” mutters Donghyuck with a shake of his head. “It’s not like you had ten years for that to happen or anything.”

“In the grand scheme of things, though, ten years really isn’t all that long of a time.” The others look on at him incredulously, and he’s quick to recover. “What I mean is that, sure, ten years have passed, but I have plenty more to look forward to, don’t I? So, even if that time has passed, it’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

“You’re an enigma, Mark Lee,” says Jeno with a laugh. “Does this mean I can stop making day trips out here on the weekend, now?”

Feigning hurt, Mark smiles. “What, you weren’t just coming out here to see me?”

Johnny wonders if Mark realizes that summer is over. There’s a relaxed nature to this slope of his shoulders as he moves through their apartment, his morning routine having relaxed to one of quiet and patience. The urgency has long ago left him, allowing him to become someone new. Nothing is easy yet, and Johnny isn’t sure when it’s supposed to be as simple as it used to be.

If he’s being honest with himself, though, Johnny knows that there’s no going back. There’s a forward, though. It’s the part that he’s looking forward to the most—a new sort of future by Mark’s side.

“Your vacation is almost over,” Johnny says, looking at Mark. “Are you ready?”

“I think so.” Mark sounds absent-minded as he scrolls through a document.

With change comes new sides to Mark that Johnny wasn’t aware existed. In a way, Johnny wonders if they would’ve made it this far if they began their relationship as their truest selves. More often than not he finds himself not understanding this new Mark and everything that comes with him. It should feel exciting—and it does, a little—but Johnny wonders if maybe this isn’t meant to work out. He shouldn’t doubt them, but perhaps it’s inevitable at this point.

A seed of doubt has arisen in both of them now and there is no going back. Overcoming it is more than a matter of the heart, though. Doubt, however, is not mistrust. Johnny still trusts Mark as much as he did before—if not more with how honest and open he has become. Of course, there is stumbling, and mistakes are made as time passes. Everything is new, so it seems inevitable.

Months are not enough to fully heal the events of the past. Years may not be, either. This relationship is not a one-sided thing. There are facets to it, some cracked and broken, others pristine. Johnny himself is not without fault or doubts. Signs existed of troubles that he purposefully ignored; smoothing down the wrinkles to make everything work. They weren’t without their fights, though Johnny had once prided himself on the ease at which he and Mark existed together.

Everything was a mirage, though. A thin sheet over the reality that threatened to, and eventually did, spill over. They call this a new beginning, but it’s really just a continuation of the past into the present and future. Love, he has learned, isn’t enough to fix everything. If it was, maybe his life wouldn’t be such a fucking mess. Maybe Mark wouldn’t still be so broken.

It’s too late to look back and regret, though. What’s in the past has already happened, and there’s nothing that Johnny can do now except for handle the aftermath. He loves Mark, and Mark loves him, and even though it should be enough, he recognizes that there’s still work to be done. Trust to be rebuilt and conversations to be had, whether under the light of the sun or under their blankets in the middle of the night. Sleep doesn’t come that easily anymore, so sometimes it’s an inevitability.

“You have an assignment, don’t you?” Mark asks, turning to look at Johnny. “I saw it on the calendar. Do you need me to get you anything before you go?”

“It’s just a few days—I’ll be there and back before you know it.” Smiling, he watches as Mark shakes his head, the smallest of laughs slipping past his lips. “Should I bring you something back from Jeju?”

“Souvenir mugs, maybe?” His gaze trails over to the cabinets and Johnny’s is quick to follow. Mark’s favorite mug is still at Chenle and Jaemin’s apartment. It’s not a loss, really, but Johnny figures that it might be to Mark. The mug holds a lot of memories for him, both good and bad. “I’m sure they have some mugs with fun shapes, right?”

In their relationship, founded on so much of their old selves, Johnny figures that it’s probably time to grow up and grow out of their pasts and find a new way forward towards the sort of future and forever that Johnny has always wanted. A new mug would be something of a physical manifestation—a step that Johnny could hold in his hands.

“Just one?” Johnny asks, tilting his head to the side.

Mark laughs, easy, before he turns back to his laptop. “Johnny, you’ve used the same mug for as long as I’ve known you.”

Maybe it’s time for a change. Johnny thinks this as he twists his coffee-stained mug around in his hand before laughing. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe it’s time to get rid of this old thing, huh?”

Sitting up straight, Mark looks at him in wonder. “Maybe it is.”

Mark wonders what he was chasing after for all of those years. Months have passed since he began to sort out the mess in his head. Healing will never be fast, and it will never finish. Part of it is a solo journey, and part of it is something that he does by Johnny’s side. Happiness isn’t something that’s fleeting, even if it seems to feel that way. It’s taken a while for Mark to realize that, though.

He’s found that happiness is always in the periphery, waiting, and watching, and existing. Happiness is always ready to be a part of your life. Sometimes it simply takes a while to integrate itself and find the proper face.

Chicago is cold, and Johnny, for the first time in all the years Mark has known him, looks out of place. Not in a bad sort of way. Simply as if this place is no longer his home. The Johnny that walks through Chicago, feet dragging through the snow, is a Johnny that Mark met only recently. His smile is different; the way he _holds_ himself is different. Mark isn’t sure how exactly, but he figures that he isn’t the same as he used to be, either.

And that’s nice. Different is, for the first time in his life, nice. So many firsts.

“What are you looking at?” Johnny asks, shoving his phone into his pocket. He reaches out for Mark’s hand, which he is more than happy to offer.

“You.”

Blinking at Mark’s honesty, Johnny turns away to hide his smile. “Like what you see?”

“No. I’m just wondering how in the world you got us lost on the way to the restaurant to meet up with your parents,” mutters Mark, shaking his head. Drops of water from the melting snow go flying at the motion, landing into the slushy mess on the sidewalk. “I thought we were using the GPS to avoid this?”

“Well,” Johnny pulls his phone out of his pocket, “I thought I knew it once we got halfway through our walk, but I guess I was wrong… It’s really just a little farther, though. We take a right and we’ll be there.”

Dinner with Johnny’s family will always be an experience. They’ve truly become his parents away from home. The way Johnny’s mother holds his face in her hands and presses a warm kiss to his forehead in greeting, his father pulling him into an awkward one-armed hug, really feels like coming home. Even if all of his possessions are halfway around the world, Mark thinks that, if he needed to, he could rest in Chicago for as long as necessary.

There are stories, some complete truths and others half-lies, that Johnny and Mark tell in tandem throughout the night. It all feels like it lasts forever in a magical sort of way, until everything is said and done, and Mark and Johnny are huddled in the back of a Lyft, tired but mildly fulfilled. They could stay with Johnny’s parents, but a hotel room provides a false sense of separation, offering them a place to talk without fear of everything falling apart before their very eyes.

One bed, two bodies, journals spread across the sheets. This is their routine. A shared journal is passed between them. It’s a way of communicating while not having to look one another in the eye. Sharing troubles and concerns and such is easier like this, and Mark has found that sharing words has opened an avenue of stepping forward from words to speaking about them, face to face. Johnny will turn to him, confused and patient as Mark works his way through his thoughts. And Mark will do the same. Point to some writing and ask Johnny what he means, and Johnny will answer thoroughly and wholly.

Sometimes the things are small, and inconsequential. Small concerns or worries or fears that can be squashed in seconds. Other times, the conversations are long, and drawn out, and take hours, or even days, to work apart. And they do it together, steadily, playing their own parts. That’s what it all really boils down to, after all, this sense of equal contributions, equal give and take, between the two of them.

Tonight, though, Mark isn’t sure if he has any thoughts that need to be shared, whether it’s the exhaustion from traveling and entertaining others for so long or the fact that things, for the first time in a very long time, seem to have calmed down. He’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So, rather than a concern, he writes, simply,

_I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. Thank you. I’m sorry for causing so much trouble, but I’m glad that we can work on ourselves and our relationship. Things aren’t ever going to be easy, but I’m happy with you._

Johnny reads it a few times, gaze flitting between Mark’s scrawl and his face, before writing his own message. It’s longer than Mark’s—considerably so—and Johnny places the journal face down on the bed before leaning over to press a kiss to Mark’s temple.

“You can read what I wrote,” he says, “but I think it sounds better if I say it out loud.”

“What, did you write a sonnet?” teases Mark, sitting up as Johnny clears his throat.

The journal looks small in his hands, smile splitting his face. He clears his throat one more time before nodding. “Here I go.” Shifting himself, he seems to nod for himself, as a personal, silent pep talk, before beginning. “Relationships aren’t supposed to be easy, but they’re not supposed to be impossible, either. I think, before, we lived in two different worlds that only _kind of_ overlapped, and we were each putting in more than we needed to. Right now, we’re in the same place, so I think everything is even now. Overlapping all the way.

“And I know that, you know, playing off of one another and working together isn’t always the easiest, but I think we’re doing a pretty damn good job of navigating it.” Johnny closes the journal before taking Mark’s hands in his. “I want to spend forever and a little more with you if the universe will allow it. In the same vein of things, ten years aimlessly looking at one another through distorted glass doesn’t feel so long when we have so much more time ahead of us.”

“That’s what I told Donghyuck and he rolled his eyes,” mutters Mark.

Smile fond, Johnny squeezes his hands while speaking, “Yeah, well, everyone’s relationship is different, isn’t it? I’m just glad we figured our shit out.”

“I am, too.”

It hasn’t been easy. It’s never going to be easy. Johnny is right. But Mark would rather fumble around and fuck up _with_ Johnny, rather than without him. The past several months were messy as fuck, and Mark still finds new things about Johnny every single day. There are things that Mark has learned he hates about Johnny, and things that he’s learned he really likes. Mark supposes that it’s the reality of letting himself love Johnny fully—the way he was supposed to.

Stumbling is, perhaps, the way.

Months pass in a sort of cyclic way. Consistency is a welcome change from chaos, and Mark doesn’t think about it too much. While breaking from a rhythm isn’t completely removed from the situation, Mark doesn’t find himself sitting at work on edge, eyes trained on his phone during breaks. Chenle and Jaemin have since moved back to Seoul, the apartment home to some new person. Mark hopes that only pleasant memories will now fill those walls.

Their own lease is coming to an end. It’s why he sits among boxes, frantically grading through an assignment as Johnny writes the contents of each box on the sides. The, _Yeah, I’ll be there to help_ , they had received from Jaehyun was flimsy at best, and Mark crosses his fingers with the hope that Yuta and Taeil will pull through. With them will come Doyoung. Five is great, but six would make things easier, Mark thinks.

Mark hopes that moving from this apartment will shed some of the memories associated with cohabitation. Nearly a year later and things are still shaky sometimes. There is more talking, and more doing in relation to thinking, but the root of everything is the truthfulness that Mark is able to procure now. And, in turn, the conversations and stories that he can continue to share with Johnny.

Honesty is not simple, nor is it easy, and that is a lesson that has been taught, and is slowly being practiced, and will one day be learned. Mark will, in the future, no longer skirt around difficult conversations and not struggle to share his thoughts. Everything takes time, and Mark will be able to do that with Johnny. He’s sure of that much.

The future seems oddly bright in front of him, and Mark wonders if it’s because he’s started to grow. It’s pretty late in the game, but now is better than never, and Mark thinks that the future is still bright.

At work, Jungwoo comments on what newfound happiness seemed to have encapsulated him. Happiness is infectious in the sort of way that sometimes it is impossible not to smile when the person in front of you seems impossibly happy. To be that happy is something that Mark never thought was possible. It’s nice to see that he was wrong.

Every day is different, but that’s just reality. Mark has learned to accept that everything will not always be great.

The future is a lot of unknowns and a lot of assurances. Johnny has shown him a ring, tucked in the back of his drawer, and spoken about plans that he talks about with such promise that Mark can’t help but believe him.

“Will you be okay if we move your things for you while you’re at work?” Johnny calls from the bedroom.

Swiveling in the kitchen chair, Mark nods to no one. “Yeah, I don’t really mind. There’s nothing for me to hide from anyone, and anything breakable is at just as much of a risk in my hands as it is in anyone else’s… It’s probably at even more of a risk in mine, to be honest. I bet you I’d break every mug.”

“I love you,” Johnny says, sliding into the kitchen, “but I won’t disagree, either. You’re clumsy.”

“You’re clumsy, too. I hope it’s Yuta moving the glassware,” retorts Mark, rolling his eyes. It’s all good-natured, though.

“I think I’m gonna miss this apartment.” His voice is a whisper, and Mark strains to hear what he’s saying. “It has a lot of good memories. And bad. But mostly good.”

Mark leans his head on his hand as he thinks. Perhaps he’s tricked himself into thinking that leaving this apartment behind will be easy. Johnny is right, though. While not their first apartment together, it represents a lot of other firsts, and Mark thinks that those sorts of memories are the ones that are going to be difficult to let go of. The cracks and the scars and everything won’t disappear once they leave this place.

They’ll still fight, and make up, and work on themselves and each other in a new place. Nothing is really different except the way the rooms are arranged. Mark thinks that maybe they put too much stock on places and not enough on the lessons they’ve learned within them.

“We’ll make plenty of memories in the new place, too,” Mark reasons, reaching out for Johnny’s hand.

“Yeah, you’re right,” says Johnny.

For all the times he has been wrong, Mark hopes that, this time, he’s right.

In another universe—in another life—Mark knows that things probably didn’t work out this way. In another timeline, Johnny and he are apart for longer in their lives than they are together. He hopes that the Mark of then is learning to love himself, as well. There will always be what-if’s in life, and Mark is teaching himself not to dwell on those thoughts. Instead, he tries his hardest to live in the present.

He is the only one that can make changes to himself and his life. Not Johnny, not his therapist, and not his friends. Mark is the only who can grab his life by the proverbial horns and take it down the direction he wants it to go. They can guide him, and offer him comfort, but the power and decisions will always rest in Mark’s hands. And that’s a little bit comforting and a lot bit terrifying. There is no happily ever after waiting for him, or perhaps this is the aftermath of it.

All Mark knows is that today, in this moment, in this universe, he is in love with Johnny.

**Author's Note:**

> wew. thanks for reading! :]
> 
> i called it a happy ending, but perhaps i want to call it realistic more than anything...?


End file.
